by Alan Smale
“You’re asking the wrong man,” Marcellinus said. “Fetch Chumanee. Unless she’s looking after someone more important.”
Kanuna laid the unconscious Matoshka down and set off on his errand. Marcellinus flexed his right arm. The feeling was coming back into it. He walked to where Tahtay stood looking out over the plaza. “And where will you live now, war chief? Here on the Great Mound?”
Tahtay shuddered. “No. I will live on the Mound of the Sun, where I grew up.” He looked at the longhouse. “This stupid golden hut has been here too long. My father should never have built it. I will tear it down as if it has never been.”
“Good.”
The plaza was now almost empty. Marcellinus cleared his throat. “Tahtay? Well done. You did not fail.”
“You, too, Hotah,” Tahtay said. “And now, please, my clan chiefs.”
—
At afternoon’s end, Tahtay addressed the people of Cahokia for the first time. Fortuitously, the clouds had rolled back and the sun shone across the plaza. The boy spoke well and clearly, giving the honor for the victory to Sintikala and Akecheta, who flanked him. To his left were the assembled elders, and to his right were the clan chiefs. Wahchintonka and Marcellinus stood together on the very edge of the group, with Kimimela and Enopay beside them.
Tahtay’s speech dwelled on the iniquities of Avenaka and made no mention of the Cahokians who had supported him. The people in the plaza knew all too well which elders and chiefs and shamans those were and saw them now standing in unity with Tahtay.
It was the first time Marcellinus had stood on the Great Mound for a speech by a Cahokian leader since he had been hauled up there as a defeated Praetor. He had his doubts about standing there now, but Tahtay, Sintikala, and the elders had agreed that it was essential that all the important people in Cahokia be seen united. Marcellinus would be an essential part of any negotiations with Roma, and this was the time for the people of Cahokia to understand that.
Marcellinus had agreed on condition that he was not separated from Kimimela. His daughter was still in shock from the battle on this very mound just hours earlier, but as Tahtay spoke, Marcellinus felt her relax beside him and draw herself up to her full height. She would be a great leader, too, one day. Of that, Marcellinus had no doubt.
Tahtay finished by swearing to tear down the Longhouse of the Sun and to be the wisest chief he could with the help of the men and women around him, who were Cahokia and always would be. He promised to honor his father’s memory and not to take the title of Great Sun Man for himself for another five summers, and then only if the elders and chiefs were in agreement.
As he raised his hands high and the audience in the plaza began to cheer, the sun set. In addition to a loud voice, Tahtay had inherited his father’s sense of timing. It was an auspicious beginning.
It was Tahtay’s first night in the Mound of the Smoke, and he was late. Marcellinus arrived to find everyone present except their new war chief, a viciously hot fire blazing, and no one talking at all. Ogleesha and Matoshka sat side by side, glaring at Howahkan. Kanuna squatted as if at any moment he might make a leap for the door. The other elders sat motionless, including some Marcellinus did not recognize, presumably those introduced during the reign of Avenaka.
As he shuffled into the lodge and sat down by Howahkan, Matoshka turned his head to stare balefully at him. “Ah. The Roman.”
Bandages wrapped the elder’s midsection, and he moved with difficulty. Mahkah’s slash obviously had not gone deep, but Marcellinus remembered the pain such wounds could bring. Marcellinus nodded. “Good evening, Matoshka.”
The old warrior blinked. “Luck went with you, down the Mizipi. I had not thought you would still be alive.”
Levelly, Marcellinus replied, “And you, too, are lucky to live and sit here among us.”
Ogleesha opened his mouth to speak, then closed it and looked away.
Marcellinus glanced at Howahkan, read the warning in his old friend’s eyes, and ignored it. “And so, Matoshka, and you, Ogleesha, tell me truly. You welcomed the death of Great Sun Man?”
There was a broad intake of breath from every elder present. Matoshka looked at him, not blinking. “You say so?”
“I merely ask.”
Matoshka lowered his head. “I disagreed with Mapiya. I still do. The Iroqua cannot be trusted. We will not have peace until our enemy is dead and burned. And so I thought Great Sun Man was wrong. But I did not want him to die.”
“Huh,” said Howahkan.
Marcellinus persisted. “But once he was dead, you accepted Avenaka as leader.”
“Of course. We are both Bear clan.”
“And now that Avenaka is dead, you will accept Tahtay as leader.” He did not phrase it as a question.
Matoshka eyed him. “For now, I do not see a better choice. And so again, yes.”
“The people want Tahtay,” Ogleesha said. “He is young and new, but his heart beats with the blood of Ituha. The people think they can make of him the leader they need. We will see if they are right.”
“And why not Wahchintonka?” Marcellinus asked. “Wahchintonka is a great warrior. Wahchintonka defended Cahokia. He knows much of war.”
Ogleesha shook his head. “You know why.”
“Tell me.”
“Because on the day the Iroqua entered Cahokia, Wahchintonka stayed behind the walls to defend the Great Mound while the Iroqua savages ran through the streets and slaughtered our people and broke open our sacred mounds.”
“But those were his orders,” Marcellinus said. “He was doing his duty.”
“Orders?” Ogleesha snorted. “Those were his people.”
“Those were his orders, and he was right to obey them.” Howahkan fed more sticks to the fire, and another great gout of smoke wafted up.
“Me, I agree,” said Matoshka. “If we had lost the Great Mound, the city would have fallen forever. We know this, for we are wise in war. Wahchintonka knows this. But that is why he can never be war chief, because he knows only war, and the people remember what he did not do as much as what he did. More people blame him for the deaths in Cahokia than blame you.”
Marcellinus shook his head.
“Yes. And that is another reason that I say luck goes with you, Wanageeska.”
“There is no luck,” Kanuna said. “For that day the Wanageeska also led an army of Cahokia against an Iroqua army. If he had not pushed back that army and forced it to rejoin the other army on the Mizipi, Cahokian blood would have fallen like rain, and yes, the city would have fallen forever. And so you are old and foolish if you talk of luck.”
Matoshka sneered. “You know nothing of war.”
Kanuna rocked on his heels and glared. “Oh, my friend, I know more than enough.”
And then the doorskin was pulled back, and Tahtay crawled into the smoke lodge.
All eyes turned. Some of the elders looked at him with curiosity, for they barely knew him, and others eyed him with trepidation.
Tahtay nodded to them and, ignoring the empty place between Marcellinus and Howahkan, took a seat next to Matoshka. “I am glad to see you all. Thank you for coming.”
Ogleesha and Matoshka looked at each other.
“You have been arguing,” Tahtay said. “I see it in your eyes, and I smell it in the air. And perhaps you have been arguing about what to do about the armies of Roma that threaten us from two sides, and perhaps you have been arguing about me.” He looked around. “Ah. Me, then. Well, I have one thing to say about that, and it is that none of you know me. Not a one of you.”
Kanuna looked incredulous, but Marcellinus was inclined to agree: again and again, Tahtay was doing things he did not expect.
“You believe you know me either because you knew my father and think I am the same or because you knew me when I was a child. I am not that child, and if you do not see that now, you will learn it in the moons to come.”
Tahtay met each man’s eyes in turn. When he got to Matoshka, the gri
zzled old warrior said, “And what do you propose, boy?”
“I propose to defend Cahokia against Roma with my life and as many other lives as are necessary,” Tahtay said steadily.
Now everyone looked at Marcellinus, who kept absolutely still and waited.
Tahtay continued. “And I will need your help. For I am young, and you are men of many winters and much wisdom. I will ask each of you what you think, here in the lodge and outside it, and I will respect what you say and weigh it when I make my decisions. I will also ask the clan chiefs and others of great knowledge, and respect what they say, and weigh it along with your words.”
After a long pause, Kanuna said, “So we will fight?”
“If Cahokia must fight, then fight we will. Always we will fight if we must. Always we will defend ourselves. Always we will preserve our honor.”
Kanuna and Matoshka’s eyes locked.
“But,” said Tahtay, and waited. The silence in the sweat lodge grew around him, and no man spoke. Tahtay nodded and continued. “But I will not shed Cahokian blood willingly or to no purpose. We must know more about the Roman armies that come to us. Avenaka would have led you into war blindly, in stupid confidence that we would win. I have no such confidence, and I am sure that no man here has any such confidence, either. I will go and look at the Roman armies, and with your help and the help of the Wanageeska, if we can find a path that will lead to peace with honor rather than war, then we will consider that path.
“I am no shaman who claims he can see tomorrow and the next day. I am just Tahtay, and I am young. But I am also Tahtay who was told he could never walk again, and now I am walking and running and fighting. More: I am Tahtay who ran a thousand miles alone to the Blackfoot, who met his spirit along the way and became a man among the Fire Hearts. And if you do not respect that, you are not wise, and worse, you are my enemy. I am Tahtay, and I have spoken.”
Utter silence in the Mound of the Smoke except for the crackling of the fire. Again Tahtay looked every man in the eye in turn, including Marcellinus.
Eventually, Howahkan leaned forward and took a sip of water from his beaker and said almost conversationally: “Well, then, I follow Tahtay.”
“I follow Tahtay,” said Kanuna.
Matoshka smoothed his hair back. His fingers glistened with bear fat. His other hand still clutched at the wound in his stomach. “I, too, will follow Tahtay.”
“I follow Tahtay,” Ogleesha said.
One by one, the men moved and spoke.
Tahtay looked at Marcellinus.
Marcellinus had sworn an oath to never take Roman life. He would never face them in battle. But Tahtay knew that, and this was hardly a time for caveats, not when a young man of sixteen winters had just won over a hostile audience of elders with such aplomb.
If Marcellinus wanted to be trusted as an equal by these men, he really had no choice.
“I follow Tahtay,” he said, and drank.
Tahtay nodded. He picked up the pipe, turned it over in his hands, and sniffed it. His face cracked in a wry smile. “And now I really have to smoke this thing?”
—
To everyone’s surprise, winter arrived with the Romans having moved no closer. Perhaps they feared being caught in heavy snows while on the march, although this seemed unusually cautious. Marcellinus did not pretend to understand why they were waiting, but he, Tahtay, and everyone else were certainly glad of the stay of execution.
Meanwhile, an ever-growing and ever more proficient Cahokian army drilled daily in the Great Plaza under the command of Wahchintonka, Akecheta, and sometimes Tahtay himself. Everyone else tried to pretend life was normal despite the invading army just a few weeks’ march away.
For Tahtay, this was an opportunity to consolidate his power in Cahokia. For Kimimela, it was her chance to be thrown into the air in her Hawk craft from the launching rail on the Great Mound for the first time, something Marcellinus steadfastly demanded not to be informed about. For Enopay, it was about counting grain and warriors.
As for Marcellinus, this was his sixth winter in Nova Hesperia but the first in which he worried that his toes and fingers might grow so brittle in the cold that they would snap clean off. Apparently overwintering in the south the previous year had destroyed his ability to endure the cold at Cahokian latitudes. Or, more likely, the buffalo hunt on the frigid plains had chilled him so deeply that he would never be warm again.
He would turn just forty-seven winters this year. Really, he should not have to run to the Big Warm House with the rest of the elders. In previous years he might have spent time in the steelworks, but these days the metalworkers were on a war footing. They were doing some things Marcellinus would rather not know about and other things he was actively forbidden to learn about, and there was frankly no space for him anyway.
And so, having been gifted a house that was much bigger than he needed, he had turned it into his workshop. And if he kept a brick furnace with a pipe leading indoors and stoked it a little hotter than most, that was no one’s business but his own.
—
Hurit stomped into Marcellinus’s house unannounced, snow tumbling from her boots onto his floor, her gladius banging against her thigh. “At last! You are hard to find. Juno, it’s hot in here.” She pulled off her fur-lined cloak and tossed it onto Marcellinus’s workbench, on top of the wooden paddles and buckets there.
Marcellinus put down his hammer and wiped the sweat out of his eyes. “Hard to find in my own house with smoke coming out of the smoke hole?”
“I thought you’d be in the Longhouse of the Wings. Or with the ship. Or at the brickworks or the steelworks. Or with Wachiwi. Or with Takoda. Ah!” Spying the bearberry tea brewing on his hearth, she helped herself, splashing it into a beaker.
Marcellinus shook his head, amused at her presumption. This was the first time Hurit had ever been in his house, and he hadn’t even seen her for weeks. “Make yourself at home. And ‘Juno’?”
“Oh, I picked that up from you.” Hurit paused. “Is it rude?”
“Juno is the queen of the Roman gods,” Marcellinus said. “Also the goddess of marriage.”
“Huh.” Hurit picked up one of the flat boards he was working on. “This is for the Concordia?”
“No, it’s for a waterwheel. Stand a stout wheel upright in the river with a series of these around the rim, or perhaps buckets, and the current will…” He stopped. She wasn’t interested. “Tahtay still isn’t speaking to you?”
“I ruined everything,” she said, and flopped onto the bench with her head in her hands.
Marcellinus picked up a heavy file from his tool kit and began shaping the closest paddle, the only one he could reach without leaning across Hurit or moving her cloak.
“But you don’t care,” she said. “You’re not going to help me. Why should you?”
“Tahtay is busy preparing to make war on my people. Him and his ten thousand warriors.”
“There are not ten thousand of us, and it will not come to that. You will think of something.”
Marcellinus shook his head. “What does Anapetu say?”
“About the war?”
“About Tahtay.”
“That plenty of other good men in the city would happily sacrifice ten winters of their lives to marry me.”
Hurit was one of the most striking young women in Cahokia and certainly the best-looking female warrior, although she was proficient enough with sword, spear, and ax to give any man pause. “Well, she’s right, but it isn’t worth marrying someone you don’t love.”
“You should know,” she said nastily.
Marcellinus gave her a look and reached past her after all to pick up another paddle and compare its width with the one he was holding.
“I’m sorry,” she said, suddenly contrite. “I didn’t mean to be cruel.”
Marcellinus was losing patience and trying not to show it. “What are you, Hurit, sixteen winters? There’s no hurry.”
“Of course th
ere is no hurry to marry. But I want Tahtay!”
“Do you want him because he is Tahtay or because he is war chief of Cahokia?”
Hurit stared. “And now you are being cruel.”
“You were less interested in Tahtay when he was wounded and limping.”
“Only because he was being a constant pain in everybody’s—”
“And Dustu seemed more to your taste.”
She sighed dramatically. “Dustu sits at Tahtay’s right hand. Tahtay trusts Dustu. He cannot look at Dustu and always see me. And I cannot marry Dustu but always be looking at Tahtay.”
“And Dustu is boring?”
Hurit’s face cracked in a sudden conspiratorial grin, and despite himself, Marcellinus found he was smiling back at her. Really, Hurit was absurdly engaging.
“Yes, Dustu is boring…And Dustu is still my friend. But nothing more. And Dustu does not mind that, because he never expected to have me in the first place. And there are plenty of girls who would give ten winters of their lives to marry Dustu. Do you want some tea?”
He nodded in self-defense, still knocked off balance by her constant changes in mood.
Marcellinus had never played matchmaker in his life, but as Hurit knelt by his hearth to make fresh tea, he found himself thinking about it.
Tahtay was certainly busy, but he was also lonely. Because he was the new war chief of a large and complex city, there was a limit on who he could talk with candidly. He had Sintikala and the elders for advice but always had to be on his guard with them, building his reputation for dependability, preserving his outward face as a strong and reliable leader. Dustu was loyal and hardworking but unimaginative, and Marcellinus had no difficulty understanding why Hurit had lost interest in him. Kimimela and Enopay were Tahtay’s friends and allies and could provide invaluable support, but Kimi was three years younger than Tahtay and Enopay was maybe six years younger.
Tahtay had spent a year as a member of a Blackfoot warrior society, a brotherhood of young men much like himself. Marcellinus and Sintikala had ripped him away from that brotherhood. Tahtay had no Cahokian family left: Great Sun Man was dead, Nipekala was with the Blackfoot, and Great Sun Man’s mother and younger half brother had fled after he was killed.
